The How To Do Things Blog — How to wisdom from across the Internet — want to know how to do something? You may find the solution here.

How to play DOS games on Ubuntu with DOSBOX

Gaming

The old DOS games hold their own charms and we can never forget our first brush with Wolf3D and Prince of Persia. Even when have all forgotten how the DOS prompt looked, it’s easier to play DOS games. But what happen when you ditch Windows and switch Ubuntu. Do you bid farewell to all your [...]

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Avoid self pity and get rid of it

Self Improvement

Self pity is a too expensive hobby to indulge in. No matter how rich one is, this hobby is costly even to the richest on this planet. So it’s better to get out of self pity as soon as possible.
Slipping into self pity is quite easy but getting out of it is not so easy. [...]

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How to easily design your own WordPress theme

You can easily design your own WordPress them. There are many WordPress theme frameworks available that can be used to create a highly professional theme without much effort. You need to design your own WordPress theme when you either want a unique theme for your blog or you want to integrate your blog into your [...]

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How to watch TV online on the Internet

Tired of watching your cable TV and would like to switch to online, Internet based programming? The problem with convention cable TV is that you pay for all those channels you rarely watch, and then you are limited by the package offered by the cable TV company. Online TV on the other hand offers you [...]

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How To Put Yahoo! Messenger And Skype Icons Or Buttons On Your WordPress Blog

Want people to be able to call you on Skype when they visit your WordPress blog? Do you want people to know that you are online on Yahoo! messenger and they can initiate a chat session by simply clicking the icon or the button on your blog? This is a very good way of encouraging [...]

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How to improve your productivity step by step

Efficient Working

If you want to improve your productively you need to be cautiously engaged in the activity. Many people don’t realize it, in order to improve your productivity you have to take well-targeted and planned steps, and this is more important when you work on your own and you don’t have tried-and-tested system to monitor your [...]

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How to create text shadows effect with CSS

Creating text shadows with CSS is a great way of creating cool text effects without having to use images. With abundant bandwidth and low hosting costs you may wonder why create text shadow effects with CSS if you can easily do that with graphic files? Well, you may not have a decent image editing or [...]

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How to simplify your business marketing plan

You want to simplify your marketing plans for your business? Marketing is all pervasive phenomenon, it is not limited to businesses only but actors, artists, singers, movie producers, NGOs, presidents or prime ministers need it too. Whether one likes it or not a good marketing strategy is must if you want visibility, viability and success [...]

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How to be indispensable at your job

Career

You want to make yourself indispensable at job? You want to duck the tide of lay offs during the time of recession? We are passing through hard times and instead of hiring, firing has become the norm for companies. So How to protect your job at this time? How to make yourself indispensable? Try to [...]

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How to improve your memory and learn fast

Self Improvement

In order to improve your memory you don’t have to work very hard. Lots of your study-related, and even day to day problems can be solved if you can of you can learn fast and improve your memory. The problem with learning crops up when we put too much stress on trying to remember by [...]

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How to forcibly shut down or kill a hung program in Ubuntu

ubuntu

Sometimes Ubuntu (or any other operating system for the matter) applications just freeze and you need to shut them forcible or kill them. This is not often advised but sometimes there is no other alternative. It may happen if the application has run into an infinite loop or there is some internal error that has [...]

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How to publish RSS or XML feeds data with PHP

Publishing RSS or XML feeds data with PHP is a great way of having fresh content on your website. They’re also a great way of updating your feeds across multiple website if you have a web service constantly generating fresh RSS feeds. You can also create your own RSS feeds reader on your website that [...]

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How to update a MySQL table with PHP

You can update a MySQL table, either with PHP or through its command prompt, by adding (inserting) new records to it or modifying the existing records. But in this tutorial we’re going to explore how you can update a MySQL table with PHP. You may have to do this when creating an online application in [...]

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Gmail notifier for Google Apps in Ubuntu

Looking for a Gmail notifier for Google Apps in Ubuntu? A long time back we discussed here how to set up a Gmail notifier for your Google Apps account but that was in the context of Windows. You can have the same facility in Ubuntu too. The procedure is somewhat the same — you setup [...]

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How to install Apache, PHP and MySQL in Ubuntu

Would you would like to install Apache, MySQL and PHP on your Ubuntu desktop? Installing Apache, PHP and MySQL in Ubuntu lets you develop websites and database applications on your PC or laptop, without having to access the remote server again and again.
You first need to install Apache. As you must know Apache is the [...]

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How to finish what you start

Efficient Working

Do you find it difficult to finish what you start? If yes, you are with 99.99% of people and it’s only .01% people who really know how to reach their goals and see that they finish what they start. To be frank, we all have great ideas and in fact, such ideas come a dime [...]

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How to write successful fiction

Writing

Writing successful fiction is more than having a story. Although there can never be fixed rules — dos and donts — because different writers prefer different writing styles and different readers prefer different types of writings, still, there are some rules that definitely help you write successful fiction.
Some writers in this Guardian article titled Ten [...]

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Kevin Rose tells how to be a successful entrepreneur

Want to be a successful entrepreneur? It’s not just about having a killer product or service. You also need to know how to run a business, how to promote yourself and how to develop a dedicated community around your business. Once you have got an idea, you have to develop it and then implement it. [...]

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How to draw shapes like squares, lines, circles and triangles in GIMP

If you’re looking for a powerful alternative to Photoshop you’ll have to settle down with GIMP. It’s a great freesource image editing tool but it has its peculiarities and sometimes, unlike it’s commercial counterpart, even simple tasks can seem cryptic. For instance, if you want to draw squares, lines, circles and triangles using GIMP, you [...]

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How to learn and play Sudoku

Games and Puzzles

Sudoku is not only an addictive logic game it also exercises and strengthens your mental faculties, one you learn and play it. Sudoku is a Japanese expression meaning single number and as the name indicates, its a numbers game. Up till 2005 it was played in Japan but then it suddenly became an international hit [...]

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How to create great HTML online contact forms easily

Wondering how people create those breathtakingly beautiful HTML contact forms for their websites? If you want people to contact you from your website and if you don’t want to share your email ID openly having a contact form is the best way of enabling people to get in touch with you. People can simply fill [...]

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How to have a better and positive day

Self Improvement

Have you been getting up feeling down in the drain, not wanting to face the world and its inhabitants. There can be many reasons for feeling low (we’re not talking about clinical depression here), for instance, you woke up with a bad thought, or you went to sleep carrying lots of negative. The point is, [...]

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How to install and uninstall software applications in Ubuntu

Once you’ve installed Ubuntu you have most of the software applications you’re going to need, nonetheless you’d like to install many new software applications and as time goes by, you may even want to uninstall existing applications. There are two ways you can install and uninstall software applications in Ubuntu: using command line Terminal, and [...]

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How to use your Google apps email ID with Empathy

Empathy is the default instant messenger shipped with Ubuntu 9.10. Like any other IM it supports text and voice chat and for Linux/Ubuntu distributions it can be a good GoogleTalk substitute. Just like Pidgin, Empathy supports multiple chat IDs — this means to use different chat programs you don’t need to install multiple chat clients.
As [...]

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How to write a creative marketing email

Email

If you think email marketing is passe you’d like to rethink. Email marketing is still one of the strongest business promotion exercises on the Internet and it is very important to learn how to create an effective and creative marketing email.
Your subject is very important when you are creating a marketing email. Most of your [...]

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How to brighten dark images with Photoshop

Disappointed with the latest pics you shot because there wasn’t enough light? A dark, unclear image can be a result of bad light around the scene being captured or your camera not getting enough time to process the image, or whatever other reason. But it doesn’t mean the photo has gone waste. This blog posts [...]

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How to activate ALT+TAB in Ubuntu

Although Alt+Tab by default lets you switch windows by default, while making various tweaks and changes you may unintentionally deactivate it, as it has happened to many new Ununtu users. Since it’s a feature you use it all the time without evening realizing it, if you can’t alt+tab between different windows it can pose a [...]

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How to make Ajax calls with jQuery

jQuery is a JavaScript library that lets you easily create highly interactive, responsive and dynamic web pages. One of the greatest advantages of using jQuery is the ability to make Ajax calls with it. In this tutorial we’re going to learn how to make Ajax calls with jQuery.
With Ajax you can update content of various [...]

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How to increase the security of your Gmail account

Increasing or ensuring the security of your Gmail account is less about technology and more about being careful while using your Gmail account. It is a given that you should use a password that cannot be easily cracked or guessed. Here’s a Gmail blog post on how to choose a smarter password for your Gmail [...]

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How to add Google Apps account to Pidgin

Pidgin is an open source instant messaging client that you can use both on Windows and Linux based operating system such as Ubuntu. This blog tells you how to set up your Google apps account in Pidgin.
For many PC power users shifting from Windows to Ubuntu can be a difficult transition when they’ve got used [...]

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How to use Google Voice with your own phone number

Up till now if you wanted to leverage the benefits of Google Voice you had to use a different number; but no longer. According to Google’s official blog now you can use your own phone number with Google voice. Read more about it on their blog.
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How to install MySQL-Admin in Ubuntu

So you have finally got MySQL running in Ubuntu. Now how to manipulate the database? You can open the Terminal window and use the MySQL command prompt but it can become really laborious after a while, especially if you’ve been using some sort of GUI in Windows to work with MySQL. Although there are several [...]

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How to upgrade from Ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10

Now that Ubuntu 9.10 is being released you must be itching to get hold of the new Ubuntu version. In order to upgrade from Ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10 you don’t need to download an ISO and burn it onto a CD if you’re already running a previous version of the Linux operating system. Simply press [...]

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How to open tar.gz files in Ubuntu

tar.gz is a compression technology normally used by non-Windows platforms. While setting up your Ubuntu installation (the latest Ubuntu version these days is 9.10) you may need to download numerous tar.gz files. Before installing these files you’ll need to extract them.
Start the Terminal window: Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal
Go to the folder where you have [...]

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Using prototype.js and jQuery on the same web page

Web Development

The problem with using Prototype.js and jQuery on the same web page is that they both use the $ function differently, so there is a clash. Either Prototype can use the $ function or jQuery. But both these JavaScript libraries have great utility values if you want to develop interactive and dynamic website. With Prototype.js [...]

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How to quickly install WordPress on your local computer

WordPress is undoubtedly the most preferred blogging platform in the world due to the fact that it can be easily installed, easily customized and easily used. With a plethora of add-ons, plugins, hacks and themes available all over the Internet, it is almost irresistible to use. In almost all the cases you need to install [...]

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How to launch and manage your own news journalism website

Content Publishing

Does the firefly of independent journalism keep flickering inside your head? Do you find it too constraining to work in the news industry working under excruciating editorial guidelines? Do you want to take your profession to the next level? And above all, are you ready for the hard work and adventure involved in launching and [...]

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How to create a password-protected folder on your Linux server hosting

Server

Sometimes you want to keep your files on your Linux hosting server but don’t want anybody else to access them. You want to create a password protected folder on your remote server. You can achieve that using .htaccess and .htpasswd files.
First of all create the folder you want password protected on your remote server. After [...]

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How to write a novel using the Web – the Internet

Efficient Working

Although being able to write a novel doesn’t depend on the kinds of tools and gadgets available (there was no Internet and the World Wide Web when Dickens and Dostoevsky wrote one killer novel after another) to you, now that they are available, you might as well use them write the next timeless classic. Using [...]

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How to manage your time and work efficiently

Efficient Working

When you are working on your own — especially as a freelancer — managing time and tracking efficiency can be a Herculean task, and you can’t achieve much unless you are particularly careful about managing your time and work place.
Firstly, it’s all about organization. If you can organize your workplace, if everything is where it [...]

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How to create a minimalist WordPress blog layout from scratch

Do most of the free WordPress blog themes and layout put you off? Are you contemplating designing a corporate blog theme for your business or company? Creating a WordPress blog layout is not as daunting as it seems. Little bit of CSS, little bit of PHP and a little knowledge of WordPress theme tags can [...]

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How to do private-anonymous browsing with FireFox

You must have come across hundreds of tools that help you visit “certain” websites without leaving traces. The problem with all the browsers is that they cache the pages you visit, and they also remember the links that you have visited, and if you’ve been using some secret user name and password, they remember even [...]

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How to use less electricity at home

Efficient Working

Using less electricity doesn’t just make sense environmentally, it can also save you lots of money, and not just lose change. Some people claim that by making some small changes in the way they used electricity they could save up to 30% to 50%. Of course if you use less electricity at home you make [...]

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How to select the perfect CMS for your website

Content Publishing

A CMS stands for content management system. Up till now a CMS was used primarily to publish content on the Internet, like online newspaper, magazines and article directories. WordPress began as a blogging tool but after a few years many web publishers started using it as a content management system, as you can manage a [...]

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How to optimize ping – PNG – images

There are three major image formats people normally use as web images: JPG, GIF and PNG. A great benefit if using PNG images files is that you can create good transparency effects with them. Although all major image editing tools let you create ping files, there are not many way of optimizing png files. But [...]

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How to increase your declining blog traffic

Sooner or later your blog traffic begins to decline. The reason can be anything: may be your focus has changed and your posting frequency has reduced. Or may be you have lost the initial zeal, or there was a sudden change in the theme/subject and you have lots the interest of your audience. Once the [...]

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How to be successful in whatever you do

Many think success is simply a state of mind but when we see it in the perspective of real life, it means excelling in whatever you do: running a business, earning money, helping others and bringing about positive changes, and raising a family. On the Internet you will find many tools and utilities and programs [...]

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How to create effective 404 error pages

A 404 error page is a page your visitor encounters when there is a page or a blog post missing on your website. In the course of many months and many years when you are constantly adding new web pages and modifying or removing redundant pages there comes a time when the search engines and [...]

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